Prelude
by Black 13 Productions
Summary: When a foreign lycan is spotted sneaking around the Millennium base, he is immediately captured and brought in for questioning. Unexpectedly, Rip Van comes to his rescue, but nothing good can come from it. RipxReno
1. To Catch a Wolf

**Prelude**

_A Product of the Twisted Minds of_ **Black 13 Productions**

**Disclaimer**: Reno is not ours; his original concept is copyright Square for Final Fantasy 7. His interpretation, however, is ours, along with parts of his background. All the same, the setting and a good majority of the characters/locations belong to Kouta Hirano-sama for his manga/anime series, Hellsing. Parts of Rip's background are fabricated by us.

**Chapter 1**

**H**e was trying to keep out of all the spots of silver moonlight as it poured through the canopy of leaves in the dark trees around him, a red wolf whose brilliantly red fur was dulled in the shadows he tried to keep to. Bless the fact that the moon was only half-full tonight; he would be in big trouble if it were new or completely full. Those were times when he was completely vulnerable, unable to change back into his human form and he would need his human form if his wolf form were bounced back to its territory at … wherever it was the beast went to when not in use on that plane of existence. As of right at that moment, he needed speed more than anything and so he found himself running on all fours. It always felt a bit odd when in this form; there were more muscles shifting about to power the creature. The extra power was very much appreciated, though, as it pelted him forward like a bullet, the massive padded paws barely making a sound in the underbrush. It was at moments like these he thanked whatever god got him a job as a Turk; being one of those secret mercenaries seemed to have honed his abilities to dodge things in the dark.

Around him in the trees that ran alongside the river he was following, he could hear them. FREAKed vampires were such stupid clumsy things and obviously did not believe in silence. Hence he was running close to a body of water; his scent would be lost over the stronger flowing scent of so much water.

However, he knew that hidden somewhere in the ranks in pursuit of him, there were others who were just as silent as he was. They were the ones he had to keep all his senses trained on. They were the ones that would bring him down if he was not careful. His ears flicked about against the air that rushed passed him and forced them back to his cranium. He was giving up a little of his aerodynamic frame, flicking his ears about like that, but it would hopefully help more in the long run. His nose didn't work out here; the damned thing picked up the pathetic vampire wannabes floating around in the dark trees around him and the river close by, a disadvantage to his following it. Not even the peaceful smells of the pine and the maple or that of the river nearby came through the former's stench, however, a reeking scent so thick one could easily cut it with a knife, in his opinion. Than again, lycans and vampires never really did get along too well…

He glanced by a spot of the moonlight that crept through the trees, a small bit that barely caught his form and shone silver-red across his fur. Sadly, it also hid something else from view; a small puddle of water was expertly hidden in the foliage and flickering light. His front paws hit the little pool and splashed, alerting the vampires around him to his current location. There was no noise emitted from his snout as the water of the puddle splashed around his front and wetted the fine red fur, just an odd crow-hop as he bounded straight up and then diagonally to his left once or twice and forward into a darker, more shadowed area in the trees ahead. He hoped no one would find him before he formulated a plan.

Brilliant white-blue eyes caught sight of a tall thick bush as he exited the more lightened area and, without sound as he hopped across the near-black foliage-ridden ground, he bounded into the plant and plopped himself as close to the ground as possible so he could catch his breath and determine his next move without much disruption. It seemed that his bounce into the brush had thrown off his pursuers; he heard and smelled the vampires in pursuit of him running passed, most of them hitting that same pool of water that had given away the wolf they were trying to catch. None of them even stopped to look into his haven, despite the fact that his entire front from his chin down was covered in water. For the love of all things holy, he probably smelled like wet dog beyond all belief and yet these idiot vampires were completely blind to it smell-wise. Still, his black nose kept twitching and his ears remained perked forward and swiveling about like radar dishes. Just in case…

While he kept an 'eye' (really, it was more of an ear and as much of a nose as he could use right then) on his surroundings, he also analyzed his next move. What felt like eons as a Turk before had honed his survival and tactical skills and now being a werwolf added more to that which he had already learned, had sharpened what he knew.

He could go to Berlin, back toward the west, where the chopper was waiting to take him back to London. But after he had been discovered on their base, obviously Millennium would set troops there to catch him since their leaders (though more than _just_ insane) were not entirely stupid; in fact, they were quite intelligent strategically, though in his prideful mind, not as good as he. For good reason, Berlin was out of the question.

Then there was the wonderful little town not too far south-easterly from his present location, Wolfsburg. The name not only attracted him, it rather applied to him. He could run from the woods here to the railroad tracks and follow them into the town, call headquarters, and tell them to send the chopper over to his new location. That would be best. At that rate, he'd be back home before the evening tea Walter would be serving and those damn Nazis wouldn't know what hit them until he was clean out of the country. After all, he wasn't known as the 'Red Shadow' for nothing. Had his current form allowed him to grin wickedly, guaranteed he would definitely be grinning as deviously as he could.

He continued to wait patiently under the bush, listening carefully for the last of the vampire troops to pass, feeling the thud of their heavy footfalls through the ground under him grow fainter as they passed by. Ten minutes had passed since the supposed last Nazi bloodsucker had passed him by and finally his nose was cleared from that overwhelming despicable scent of decay, rotting blood, and long-overlooked B.O... Slowly, he turned about as quietly as he could, slid from under the bush and, after a final look around, ran.

Every muscle seemed to fire at once, launching the wolf forward through the undergrowth with little effort. There was very little rustling as he flew passed bushes or low-hanging branches, his fur glistening dully in the faint light as the trees around him began to thin.

He was able to see where the trees finally dissipated into the German countryside, saw the upraised dirt-and-gravel embankment of the railroad a little ways out. Maybe only a few hundred yards from the treeline. If he could only make it to the tracks, he was home free for the most part. Sure, there was a greater risk of being spotted out there in the open, but between his sense of duty and his just plain recklessness (something he had always been known for, even when he was 'human'), he was willing to risk it all. At this point, he would be closer to getting home and be able to defend himself if he was spotted and attacked.

Upon seeing the moonlight in the unclouded sky above gleaming off the railroad ties, his body hugged the ground for a more aerodynamic position and he darted from the trees. It was a short distance from the safety of the tiny wood behind him to the raised earth that housed the wood and steel tracks, his front half turning just slightly as he reached the middle of aforementioned embankment and shooting his massive yet sleek form sharply to his right.

As he ran in the gravel and soft dirt along the railway, he could not help but shake the feeling that he was being followed. Well, with the price of retreating with information came the price of constant paranoia until one got back to home base.

But still…

This was a feeling he couldn't help but feel deep in his instinct. There really was someone after him, someone he didn't want to tangle with. That was the sense he got from all of this. He was so deep in thought that when the one o'clock train came clacking up the tracks full of coal and oil, it scared him. He shied slightly from the railroad, his stride stumbling for but a moment as he made his way to the base of the tracks' upraised earthen platform. As the train passed him by, he suddenly felt the toll of the fatigue of running for so long, hard, and fast.

He ran a little ways further until he was sure he could continue no longer, looking off to the side into the following trees to choose a suitable spot. Some ways down the tracks, back toward the river, he thought he had found it; it rested next to the curving river and looked like a good secluded spot... Slowing to a lethargic trot, he made his way into the little haven of trees, hoping he would be able to wait out the rest of the commotion there before continuing on.

He stopped and looked around to make absolutely positive that he was not being followed before bending down for a fast drink from a small creek that merged with the bigger river some ways down. He was more tired than he lead himself to believe, realizing it only after he found a good hiding spot next to a fairly decently-sized tree. His wolf form blurred and melted away to reveal his human form, a good energy conservation trick. And still, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched (although it was more like stalking, really). He kept a vigilant watch over his surroundings for about five minutes before the tiredness of his flight took its toll on the werwolf and those bright blue eyes were slowly veiled to the world.

Like the tortoise and the hare, the nap was his downfall.

He was awakened by whispers. Normally he would be able to sleep through things like such, thinking it was the wind. These whispers, on the other hand, were not the sounds of the light summer breeze moving through the trees. These were honest-to-God whispers, voices speaking low in volume and in German to boot. The latter was what set him off, fully waking his mind and making every sense alert again.

The shocking blue eyes of the once-sleeping wolf were snapped open, catching the patched light of the moon through the trees around him silhouetting tall lanky figures. His pointed ear tips twitched lightly and curved a little bit more to catch echoes of what they were saying and, most importantly, location of each and every one of them. After a few moments of listening in, he determined they were on all sides of him, or at least that was how it sounded. These must have been the others he felt when running away from the main troops. Perhaps, if he was lucky, they did not see him and were merely passing by his location…

_Yeah right._ he thought to himself. _With skin as white as mine seems to be, it's surprising I don't glow like a lighthouse…_

Well, at least he knew that his camouflage of sorts was done and over with. If he was lucky enough, they might – just might – pass him by and so, even though he knew deep inside they had really located him, he remained still and waited for their first move. His own thoughts on himself proved all too true; his pale skin caught the faint light of nearby spots of moonbeams and shone like a beacon in the night, something he took fast note of and cursed himself for his repulsed idea on sunlight touching his skin unless it _had_ to.

He was not really sure what exactly let him know that he had been found out. Maybe it was the fact that not too long after he had mentally acknowledged the other beings' existence, he was immediately held at gunpoint by one of them, and from a tree of all places. There was a moment of time where the call had been sent out from the one in the tree, a scramble ensuing that enabled him to closer study the weapon that was threatening his very well-being.

His brow furrowed, the creases heavy and dark on his pale face. Was that a … vintage musket?

He shrugged it off for the moment, sure he'd understand it one day. He had seen weirder weapons used against people. Like Alucard, for one example. Good Gods only knew that the vampire was definitely a strange weapon, albeit the most psychotic one he had come across since the hell his ex-organization endured with the rogue SOLDIER, Sephiroth.

He responded to the orders of 'Stand up!' well enough, never mind the fact that the middle finger of his right hand was shot up alongside the devious smirk that began across the wolf's face as he rose to his feet. There was a loud shout across the group; obviously his display of defiance was not so kindly met.

Good.

That _was_ the plan… Now if he could only fluster them all a bit more, he could use the chaos to escape. The one in the tree tipped the musket upward so that the maw of the firearm tapped lightly on the bottom of his chin. Quite obviously, his intentions were read by his ever-vigilant guard in the tree.

The pale blue gaze of the wolf was cast upward in the direction he saw the length of the monster gun disappear into the foliage. "Watch it, sugar. I rather like my face intact, thank you very much." he warned the figure hidden in the shadows, his tone reflecting his trademark cool attitude.

There was a small noise from the trees above. It wasn't all rustling around. Hell, it sounded more like a growl than anything else. It was a sure sign that whatever was in the tree did not like his calling it 'sugar'. Well too damn bad. He'd have his way, whether it liked it or not.

He was set on pulling out at the very least an outline of the being in the tree when someone else took a step forward and cleared their throat. "Reno Sinclair, also known as ze 'Red Shadow' in ze underground…"

The speaker was German, but it was difficult to really place a gender given the fluctuating tones of such a voice. Whatever it was, it sounded like it had hit puberty. Reno stood there with his usual calm façade, looking bored … with the barrel of a vintage musket practically attached to his throat.

"Can we get on with it? If you know so much about me to call me by name, you obviously know I have a tight schedule to keep…" he said then, crossing his arms at his chest for a brief second and making to lean against the tree when the musket was once more bounced lightly against his chin. That was the last straw! His arms were uncrossed, the right index finger pointing up where he thought the gunman to be, his voice raised in annoyance. "I _swear_ to _fucking __**God**_! Touch me with that fucker again, buddy, and I will make it a God damn wood and iron suppository!"

There was a moment of silence from both parties. However, his outburst seemed to have worked; the musket's lengthy barrel became perfectly still, though it remained pointed at his chest region now. At least it wasn't hitting his chin. Of that, he was grateful. At that moment, he was trying to think up a way to get out of here, that innocent ignorant pup he normally kept locked deep in the back of his mind starting to panic. Panic like … like …….

_Panicking like a cornered animal…_ he thought to himself, once more casting his icy gaze around at those surrounding him. _Which is exactly what I am to them, isn't it?_

In the confused silence that ensued from his outburst, he took note of the one who had addressed him. Shorter than their comrades, he noted, and with protrusions from the head. Like dog ears or … or cat ears. By the feline scent … cat's. Most definitely. And yet, they were all still conferring over him. For strategically brilliant leaders, the cronies sure were idiots, no matter how intelligent they made themselves appear to be with managing to track him down…

Reno looked around, off to his left. Here, he noticed a flaw in their perimeter; there was a gap there he could easily slide passed somewhere near the cat … thing. But first, his gunman. Well, he knew how to fluster that one easily enough. A cocky grin spread across the werwolf's face before he saluted and winked.

"Good work, sugar, but you can't keep me caged with lock and key, ya know. Gotta run; wild animal, after all…" A louder growl ensued from the trees above him, followed by the rustling and snapping of branches and leaves; whoever was up there was coming down to actually deal with him, face-to-face.

_Well … well __**shit**__! _The thought passed his mind as the musket was drawn upward, the maw of the barrel almost taking his face off on its way up. It seemed the one behind the weapon was someone everyone had attentions on; all conversation ceased as soon as the massive gun was drawn away from its intended target.

For a moment, Reno had no idea what he was going to do. Until it presented itself to him in the form of the Nazis looking stunned to the tree and the musket's absence; this was his open window, right here. A salute and sharp whistle was given to the figure still in the tree.

"See ya, sugar." he laughed. "Right now, I've got a cat to chase…"

Indeed, he spoke true; his intentions were to go straight for the cat-kid and the gap next to him and he carried out his plan fairly well, he thought. He reveled in the commotion he created, figures darting from the left and right, the front and back toward him as he launched himself into the air. What little rest he had did him well in the fact that for the rest of the Nazis, he moved like a blur. Or more like the 'Red Shadow' he was known for.

His entire frame was beginning to bristle with red fur and he could feel his face popping from its original shape to that of the wolf -- becoming more elongated and narrow --, could see the look of surprise and fear in the pink eyes of the cat-creature … when something of substantial weight and force caught him square in the chest and knocked the breath out of him. The blow not only threw him backwards and into the place he started, it also slammed him back into his human form, gasping for air with a low humming ring in his ears.

_Fucking __**double**__ shit!_

Black was starting to barely filter into his line of vision, only clearing when he was able to make his paralyzed chest muscles work, coughing as he took in air again. Over the dull drone that had momentarily taken over his hearing, he heard a woman (this was unmistakably a woman … that or a very effeminate man) say, "Zat vas for calling me 'sugar'…"

He didn't hear the growl over the ringing, but at least he knew who had hit him. The one in the trees had finally emerged. He rolled over, sitting in a crouch while he waited for the world to stop spinning. Still, he wasted no time in taking in his surroundings; still the tall shadowy figures (save the cat…thing; it was relatively short in comparison) and one with a musket.

A big musket. A very big, unusually long musket. With gold and bronze detailing along the stock.

So that's what he was hit with, neh? Felt like it…

Reno poked at his chest where he felt the thing hit, wincing. "Yeah … a-yup … That's gonna bruise…" he muttered before looking up at the one with the musket, giving a small pained smile, sarcastic though it still looked. "D…did I say 'sugar'? I meant 'my lord'…"

This was met with the stock of the immense gun rising up to catch his chin from below, sending him backwards again. The ringing returned and he tasted something coppery in the fore of his mouth; blood.

"Zat ist no vay to speak to ein fraulein." she growled at him and he barely heard her over his mild coughing fit, the ringing, and the slight laughter rising from her comrades.

Still, he thought of something to retort with amid thoughts of, _Idiot… You're certainly on a one-way track to your death…_ Of course, he flipped about thoughts of whether or not there was a heaven for good werwolves, though he dismissed it with his next words.

"Ah, so we have gender distinction." he said, pointing one wobbly index finger into the air while he tried once more to stand. He wove to one side violently, then the other, before he steadied himself.

_Yup. Werwolves go to hell…_

This conclusion came shortly after the barrel of the musket caught him across the face and knocked him over again. The world swam once more, his breath coming in wheezes through his throat. Through determination (and a lot of it), he managed to roll himself over onto his back, finding the musket resting just next to his head, stock-side down. His eyes and attention, however, were directed elsewhere.

Like the lanky sharp-suited young woman braced over him using the musket as support. She had blue eyes and long ebony hair swept back away from her face. A single stiff lock was dangling in front of her face and curled and that at least gave him something to concentrate on.

When his voice came back into his throat, he made note of it. "Y…you know that … that curl?" He caught her look up briefly at it before returning that fiery gaze back at him. "That curl … is _hot_."

He meant it as sarcasm, something to take his mind off the fact that it felt like one of his ribs was probably fractured (or broken) and he was most definitely missing a tooth. She didn't seem to think it was funny though. Her cheeks flushed bright red and the musket was raised again. Reno winced away from it, readying for probably the worst blow he would endure … when a static-y voice broke the tense silence.

"Ah ah ah, Rip Van. Ve need him alive."

The musket paused and was held still with great control, those blue eyes turning slowly to look with obvious hatred toward the speaker. She _really_ wanted to beat the wolf into submission. The cat-thing held a small screen showing a chubby Aryan face smiling in a calm deranged way through a veil of static.

"Major!" Rip Van sounded surprised, standing up in something of an attention stance.

_I'll eat my shorts if her last name's 'Winkle'… _Reno joked with himself in the sanctity of his mind. If he only knew how he had doomed himself…

"Ve varned you he had a mouth on him." the Major chuckled. "Do not take it personally if vat he said offended you. I know his tactics. Zey vill not vork." A sigh was given, followed by a pause. "I zink you haf 'roughed him up' plenty. Time to bring him in. He ist not going back to London for a very, very long time."

A sudden surge of adrenalin raced through Reno's body and it helped him dull the pain of getting his ass handed to him by a woman, of all things. Especially one so short to the trigger as this one seemed to be. Using the newly restored reserve of energy, he shook off what fog still remained in his mind and rolled over, lifted himself off the ground, and stumble/stormed his way across the small clearing toward the screen. The cat-kid gave a small indiscernible noise and took a few steps back away from the wolf, who was soon being held back and restrained by its comrades. Despite his struggling against his captors, his words still flew flawlessly.

"You don't know anything, you little rat bastard! You don't know me or my tactics or _anything_ save my reputation! I'm going back to London sooner than you think and not you or your pathetic peons are going to stop me!" He spit on the screen then, the normal clump of saliva replaced by a bloody stream conjured from the empty socket of the lost tooth. "Burn in fucking Hell! You'll get nothing out of me!"

All that met him was the ever-joyous sounding laughter of the Major. "I zink you vill be staying for longer zan you zink, 'Red Shadow'. Much, much longer…"

After that, that last surge of energy dissipated and, after a wave of mild nausea swept over him, Reno was vaguely aware of the ground switching places with the sky before his world went black.

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He dreamt of a girl.

She was a pretty little thing, if a bit sickly in appearance. Pale almost translucent skin covered a frail frame clothed in a sky-blue silk dress with a long train. The hem of the train was shaped, framing a series of expertly painted peacock feathers using iridescent fabric paint. Her hair was platinum-white and fell to her knees when bound up with a little crown-like hair ornament made of opals inlaid in silver. Strands of pearls were woven into the white locks, but what caught the attention most was not any of the previous features; her eyes held the attention. With dual colors, the left eye was what was termed a 'Mako Eye' back on his home planet; an icy blue-green color set on a slit pupil. Her right eye was the exact opposite; it writhed with living flames around a slit pupil, making her inherently special outside her normal abilities.

The girl was a Seer. An oracle. The names for those gifted with fore- or present-sight were innumerable and she was one of them, guaranteed. She sat in a room that was almost completely white save a few sparkling lights that seemed to fall from a non-existent ceiling, resting her fragile body upon a wicker armchair with her hair and skirt falling around her almost protectively. Her lovely face was twisted in an expression of what appeared to be fear.

"Reno, wake up!"

Her voice echoed in his mind, snapping him to consciousness. A bright florescent light made him wince and close his eyes again, a slightly amused thought of how he never knew his little oracle could actually reach across the present to keep someone safe. His thoughts flickered to whether or not her older brother knew she was doing something like that now.

It took a moment before he realized he was laying face-down in a puddle of blood and saliva. It must have dribbled from his mouth while he was out. Wouldn't have been the first time… He slowly opened one eye and let it get used to the blaring light, though in doing so, it also made him aware of a seething headache. Either he was just waking up from a hell of a party with a hang-over or that nasty-ass dream was not a dream at all.

He took a deep breath and damn near died coughing, his ribs hurt so much. Well, that answered that question… As soon as both his eyes had adjusted to the light, he set to work on getting up. It was quite a feat, since he hurt all over, but he did eventually make it into a crouch.

He noticed as he pushed himself up that his ponytail had come undone and was hanging about his face. It did not take too long afterward to notice that he had been completely stripped of his wardrobe. In short … he was sitting naked in a white room.

It was a very white room, with no windows or doors to see at first. It reminded him of those bad movies where some actor portraying God was supposed to flicker through some far wall or something…

"Maybe it really _was_ a party." he thought aloud, very amused by the thought. "Too bad Tsu couldn't make it. Could've found him some company besides that dragon…"

He sighed and decided to take note of the damage before he didn't have time to. He looked down and inspected his bare chest. From his right hip diagonally to under his left armpit, a massive bruise had appeared. On the left side of his torso, he couldn't help but notice the area around the second or third rib up was swelling pretty severely. He poked the swelled area experimentally and winced painfully against the sharp sting that jolted through his system. It hurt, all right.

His face probably looked like it had been put through a meat-grinder; Mistress Rip Van had seen to that, now hadn't she? He still poked around the area of his cheeks and chin. His right cheek had swollen up, as was his bottom lip. The latter was cut and bleeding and one of his bottom molars on the right side was missing.

He was still poking at his (hopefully) temporarily deformed face when a hole the size and shape of a door opened in a back corner of the room and in waddled his 'good friend', the Major. He was short and disgustingly round with a mop of yellow-gold hair falling about his face. The florescent lights reflected off the lenses of a pair of round-framed glasses balanced in front of his eyes, effectively hiding them from anyone not directly standing in front of him. His squat, fat frame was clad head-to-toe in stark white cottons with equally white shined boots. Although he walked with a straight back and had an authoritive air about him, he still had a sort of waddle that took every ounce of control Reno had to keep from laughing at the little vampire.

Flanking him on one side was a tall gaunt figure dressed in a dirty white lab coat with a set of strange-looking glasses perched upon his nose; his glasses had two main lenses, then a bunch of smaller ones screwed into the wire frame along the sides of the main ones. Long white-gold hair hung in straight greasy strings about his face and he had a smirk plastered on his face that made the wolf want to back away as far as he could from him. He did not feel at all pleasant and the fact that the air hung around him with the thick scent of fresh and old blood didn't help matters at all.

The one on the other side was tall and fairly decently built. He was hidden mostly in a long coat with the collar turned up to hide his lower face. His upper face was mostly hidden by an old soldier's cap, the only things really evident about him being that his eyes were a startling blue and looked like he had been brainwashed; they kept looking ahead, on his captive yet right through him at the same time. From under the cap stuck random strands of white hair and this was contrasted with what little tanned skin was actually visible. Reno remembered that gaze that looked somewhere on the wall behind him, but chilled the blood as the gaze went through him; this second one was the one who had spotted him sneaking around their little base. He remembered that feeling of having all the blood in his system suddenly turn to ice.

His thoughts were taken up by this second, but changed suddenly when the Major cleared his throat. "I am quite avare zat mein compatriots are intriguing…"

"Disgusting…" Reno interrupted. His correction did not seem to phase the little vampire at all, something he found a tad frustrating. So much for Escape Plan A – Fluster and Use the Ensuing Chaos to Escape. Than again, it always was Plan B that worked, right?

"…To you. However, it vould be best for you if you paid attention to me for a moment."

_God, even his voice is happy-happy-joy-joy…_ the wolf thought, a look crossing his face as though he had just swallowed an entire bucket of worms and was feeling their sliminess and squirming as they lay, waiting to die, deep in his gut. The Nazi's voice was grating on his sanity, or whatever was left of it. His horrified expression seemed to have caused a bit of disturbance; even though the Major still stood there with that ever-calm smile on his face, the stringy-haired freak with the glasses seemed to shrink away.

"All in all, you vere spotted on our little base here." the Major continued. "Zat means you normally gazer information, ja? A spy, if you vill. Even zough ve haf all ze information ve really need, it just vould not seem right to start a var vithout interrogating a spy first, ja?"

Glasses nodded with a twisted smirk on his face, but Silent remained just that; ever quiet, ever stoic. Reno decided he _really_ didn't like that guy. He didn't like the situation he was in, honestly, but he hated that guy more. Which, as it turned out, was a rather favorable feat in itself, given the situation.

So. The little freak was going to torture him for information for the hell of it? For fun? And here, he'd thought he'd seen it all.

A thoughtful expression crossed that pudgy ever-jolly face of the short vampire before him. "So now. How about ve start vith somezing simple, ja?" he suggested and the tone he used sent a shiver coursing up Reno's spine. "How about … who do you vork for?"

Honestly, Reno had never really had a chance to put his counter-interrogation skills to work and, while they had never been used, the training he had endured to gain them was severe enough that his mind immediately switched to those methods. Without thinking, he had pushed all information in his head as far back out of reach as he could get it and started humming, curling up into a ball close to the wall, though it hurt him to do so. Useless trivia was always a good thing to pull forward and keep at the fore of thought when being asked questions with the prospect of torture behind them.

The Major seemed quite interested in what the red-haired wolf was doing and leaned forward slowly, carefully, putting that face practically in Reno's own. "Und vas are you doing, I vonder?" he inquired with a lilt to his voice that could have frozen the blood with the mere intent behind it.

The wolf's face was shot up to look eye to eye with the little vampire and he sang the lyrics in a loud obnoxious voice:

_I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves_

_Everybody's nerves_

_Everybody's nerves!_

_I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves_

_And this is how it goes!_

The German looked stunned at first, then his face split into a wide grin as he turned away from his captive, crying, "Vunderbar! He plays along so vell! Dok!"

_What have I done?_ was the only thought that passed his mind. _What have I doomed myself to?_

Much to his chagrin, he watched as Glasses (still smirking in that sick way of his) pulled out a canvas roll fastened with a pair of belts. The belts were undone and the roll displayed a variety of tools of all shapes and sizes, the uses of each not something Reno really wanted to think about.

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She found herself thinking about the red-haired wolf again.

As soon as her comrades had come back home, Rip Van had split off from them to head for the small officer's bar on the complex grounds. She had really been craving a glass of their fine red wine… As soon as she had received the requested drink, she couldn't help but watch the light play off the small ripples as the drink settled to calmness again in front of her. The red shot her back to the previous mission, remembering it and the victory to be had.

The alarm through the base had traveled swiftly; as soon as the red wolf had been spotted sniffing around the perimeter of the base, the alarm had been raised and all the troops notified to find a large red wolf about half the size of an average man. Not a hard target to follow, honestly, but she knew the utter lack of intelligence of the main troops. While their strength and endurance was unprecedented, their brains were severely lacking. And so the special troops had also been deployed.

Those were Rip Van and those she threw in with … and Schrodinger. The little cat-freak had nearly botched it, getting surprised as he had when the wolf had rushed him. Honestly, had it not been for Rip Van getting as upset as she had, they would have probably lost him.

A small almost disappointed smirk tugged her lips then. She was pining over a man who probably would not be alive passed the morning. All because the highlights of a glass of wine had been reminiscent of his red hair…

While she was thinking about him, her conscience popped forward. It always took the form of her uptight late mother. She could see the old woman's straight-upright form with that perfect posture and scolding waggling finger come into being from the fog of her mind.

_**Now, now. You should haf made sure he healed before giving him up so readily…**_

She had gone to take a drink of the wine when the words flickered through her head. Deep blue eyes rolled at them, the fluted glass held just before her lips, the tangy sharp scent tantalizing her nose.

"But to disobey orders is a bad idea…" she muttered back under her breath at the spectre and went once more to take a drink. "Und I razer like meinself intact und still walking on mein own, danke…"

_**Adelaide…**_

The tone now was more than scolding; it was that maternal threat all mothers got to before they became unhappy with a misbehaving child. Like she was ready to start punishing. This time, she ignored it for a moment and drained her cup in a single gulp, her face contorted mostly at the name used more than the sour tang of the wine.

"Fine. Haf it your vay." she grumbled, shouldering the musket across her shoulders, resting her wrists across it to hold it steady and balanced and heading for where she knew they held the captive wolf. "Und do not use zat name again. Mein name ist not 'Adelaide'. Not anymore…"

The trek through the halls was simple enough, giving a small nod to any and all who passed her. The figure of her conscience had gratefully faded away to be replaced with that wolf again. She only knew his name from Schrodinger, as he had used it at the wolf's capture.

She herself had said it a few times when she knew no one else could hear her, and needless to say, she liked how it rolled off her tongue and across her lips in those two syllables. She would have said it aloud now if it weren't for the group of soldiers stomping down the hallway.

Loud creatures; you could hear them coming for miles. It really wasn't any wonder that the captive had gotten as far as he had. She squeezed herself to the wall to let them pass, thinking bemused as she caught a whiff of their scent that no, it really would not have been surprising to have found the captive already in Berlin.

As soon as the group passed, she continued onward, finally turning to attention out of reflex in front of the door into the room she knew the red-haired wolf was being held. Her hand wrapped around the lever knob and turned it, the door opening easily. Odd that it wasn't locked… The room was soundproofed, something she had not known until the barrier had been moved.

She heard that unmistakable American accent singing what sounded like nursery rhymes as loudly and as annoyingly as he could possibly muster, though the scratchy tone in it said quite plainly that he was beginning to get hoarse. She slid into the room and shut the door … in time to see the Major swiping what looked like a slender metal cane across the face of …

_Oh my!_

It took a moment to realize that the wolf was completely devoid of clothing, but once she realized it, she flushed furiously and turned her attention to Doc. The cut across the face with the pole had not only stopped the singing for a moment, but left a fine spray of blood along the back wall that matched a fan of similar pattern on the other side of the victim's head. The singing was replaced by a fit of coughing.

It was accompanied by another of those smartass remarks she had heard earlier from him. "Fine. I didn't need that tooth, anyway…" He figured he was safe since she had come in and the Major had turned to face her.

"Ah, Rip Van! Vilkommen!"

Out of sheer habit and reflex, she snapped into an attention stance, then relaxed. "Danke but … vat exactly are you doing?" He seemed so … happy at that moment... which never bade well for whomever held his attention so.

"I am interrogating for information." was the simple joyous answer to which Rip Van's face twisted up into a look of mild confusion.

"But … I zought you had all ze information you needed…"

"I do. But ve haf a spy und … vell …" Here, he shrugged and turned back to Reno, who was pushing himself back up as best he could. "…Zis ist ze most fun I haf had in a very long time." Here, he leaned in a little to Rip Van and whispered, "Ve are still on ze first question after almost drei hours! Most break after un hour und un half! He hast been very vell trained."

He sounded so excited that she almost felt bad for requesting what she was about to. "Major…" she started then paused.

He turned his jolly round face toward her. "Ja?"

It took a moment for her to sum up the courage to ask him. "Major, if it vould not be any trouble, might you stop for ein tiny vile to let your spy gain his health back up?"

It felt like the air was freezing, accompanied by a small noise she placed coming from Doc. The chill had to come from the Captain. She ignored both and kept her attention on the Major, despite the feeling of the hair on the back of her neck rising.

At first, she admitted to being fearful that he would say no to her request. She realized it was a stupid fear when he thought about it for a few fast moments, weighing the advantages to letting the wolf rest as opposed to continuing his questioning from here. He turned to her with that blissful expression on his face and gave a nod.

"Of course, of course. Und I know just ze person to take care of him."

Once more, she struck an attention stance. "Sir, I vill go fetch ze medics right avay." She turned about and was readying to march herself out the door when she was stopped by the Major tsking after her.

"Leaving so soon und not taking your charge vith you?"

She paused and turned, stunned by the sudden change in events. "I am not a qualified medic! I cannot take him! I may do somezing wrong und make him unfit to interrogate furzer!"

"Yeah … Let a qualified medic in a place where everyone is undead and eternal and never stays injured for very long take care of the torture victim… Right-o, I'll wait for him right here…"

The Major seemed to ignore the comment from the wolf, putting the metal cane back into its slot on the canvas Doc held. "I put more trust in you zan I vould in any ozer member of my medic staff. As our freund has stated, all of our medics are probably useless for his needs. You, on ze ozer hand…"

Rip Van stopped him there with a fast, "I'll take him, zen." She shuddered at the sensation of the collective glares from Doc and the Captain, though she felt she hid her reaction to the stares fairly well considering.

The Major, however, seemed to find it very intriguing that she refused to let anything about her past be revealed and humored her that, at the least. "Alright. It ist done." He turned with a clack to Doc and Captain. "Kommit! Ve are going out for ein little vile."

Still with that sing-song tone in his voice, he waited patiently for Doc to finish fastening the canvas before turning to Rip Van. "Take good care of him, Frau Rip Van."

With that, he was gone through the door with Doc and Captain behind him. She was grateful when they left. The room felt a little bit warmer without them. As soon as she heard the door click shut, she was a flurry of hair, turning to look at the red-haired wolf. There was a substantial smear of blood on the wall behind him leading in a graceful arch down to where he lay slumped against the corner between the wall and the floor. His eyes looked kind of glazed and his breathing wasn't exactly at its best, either.

She leaned the musket against the wall and stayed between him and it, unbuttoning her suit jacket and laying it over him. He had to be somewhat decent and she could always wash the coat or have another one fitted… The touch of the fabric seemed to rouse him from whatever trance he happened to be in and he curled up further under it, no doubt for warmth.

White-blue eyes peered drowsily at her over the collar of the coat and a tired smirk crossed his lips. This was replaced with a wince soon enough through a deep gouge in one cheek, but he still seemed able to speak coherently enough.

"You're a guardian angel. You know that?"

She allowed herself a little smile at that. "Not really…"

"No. Really…" Here, he paused and his face contorted almost comically into an expression of thought. "Out of curiosity, what's my angel's name?"

She paused at this but retained her smirk. "… Rip Van Winkle." she answered. "I'm going to go get some help in moving you…"

She had picked up her musket again and was headed for the door when what he said made her pause. "… Got any shorts?"

She turned about, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Pardon?"

His eyelids were drooping and yet he was fighting it, his gaze slowly veiling to the world. "Oh… No reason…"

He was completely unconscious before she reached the door.


	2. Remember: Drugs Are Bad

**Chapter 2**

_**T**__he room was large and cavernous, housing a single desk near the big bay windows at the back of the chamber with a comfortable-looking old Victorian-style chair behind it. On the desk was a phone, a neat stack of papers, a pen-holder filled to the brim with writing utensils of all sorts, a pad of ink, a rubber stamp, some sealing wax and the candle and mold to go with it, and a box of fine cigars on which sat their respective cutter._

_Before the desk stood a woman wearing a man's suit, tall and authoritive with long platinum-blond hair and pale blue eyes hidden behind a pair of round glasses. Her arms were crossed and between the pointer and middle fingers of her right hand, she held a smoking cigar, presumably taken from the polished wood box on the back left corner of the desk (assuming you sat in the chair and looked at them). Her body from the waist up was silhouetted against the blaring white light coming in from the wall of windows behind the desk._

_To her left stood Walter, the butler, holding onto the afternoon tea things. He had been ordered not to serve her until this particular moment was over. He had only to hold on to them a short while longer. Before her were two people, one standing and one kneeling before her on the checkerboard black-and-white tiled floor. _

_The one standing was tall and thin, slightly disproportionate with pale skin, red eyes, and ebony hair that fell in almost romantic waves and coils about his face and shoulders. He was wearing a fine black double-breasted suit, a long red duster with a matching red necktie about his throat, and a pair of white gloves with the most peculiar pentagram symbols etched into their backs in black. His red gaze flickered with a calm psychosis and was set on the one on the floor._

_The one kneeling was considerably shorter than this first and not because he was not standing. Even when standing straight, he barely passed five and a half feet. His skin was pale, but not deathly pale; he had a slight tan to his toned frame. His hair was naturally shocking red (though it seemed unnatural to most people), cut unevenly and a general mess on top of his head, but it flowed into a sweeping ponytail from the nape of his neck to just above his waist. His eyes were brilliant white-blue, a pair of gouged scars he was known to compulsively touch from time to time running just along the outer and lower curves of his eye sockets. His eyes were lowered from the one in front of him, watching the floor tiles just before her feet. He couldn't help but notice that the well-cared-for loafers she wore were named after him and he found this frighteningly amusing at such a serious point in time as this. His lithe body was clad in a fading grey tank that hung loosely about his chest and stomach, a pair of black fading jeans, and a pair of worn combat boots that might have been black at one point but were faded grey and brown now. These last were very incredibly worn, though the soles around the balls of his feet were really thin compared to the rest of the sole and then the fraying leather of the rest of the footwear. Around his neck hung a black leather collar, the simple circular chrome tag hanging from the front reading '__**Reno Sinclair**__' on one side and '__**Red Shadow**__' on the other. Of course, you had to be up close to really be able to read these through the frequent gleams in light, but the tag was there and performed its purpose well._

_There was a pause in the words spoken by the werwolf, watching with his head still bowed as Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing took a drag on her cigar. A cloud of sweet-smelling smoke escaped her mouth before she nodded to him._

"_Go on…"_

_A deep breath entered then left Reno as he continued the last bit. Almost done… "I so do solemnly swear to put myself and any in my current pack into your service to do with as you see fit. Give us the word and we will annihilate all who oppose you, for they oppose us as well. Of this, you have my honor and word as a wolf. You have the alliance of the Pack Sinclair."_

_Of course, as far as he was aware, his pack really consisted of only two members – namely himself and his Beta Female, Rosalind – but she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he so commanded her to do it. He had spoken to the Spanish white wolf before making the vow. She spoke of her distaste of Integra and really held nothing back (something Reno prized of his comrade wolf was her ability to express herself without fear of consequences), but told him that if he swore to her loyalty in order to keep protected the Seer Naquza, Rosalind would follow his orders. Even if those orders he gave her actually came from the mouth and mind of Integra instead, so long as it was he who told them to her in the end. He realized, sad yet proud, that she would be willing to die for him if it came to that, if he gave her the order to do so._

_Integra seemed to take a while, thinking on the vow given her by this scraggly red-haired abomination Alucard had brought to her. She really hated the idea of any more such creatures in her army (and they all tended to follow her vampire home), but it seemed that it was necessary to fight fire with fire, so to speak. Finally, after a long deliberation, she gave a solemn nod._

"_You swear all this to me without hesitation. Have you spoken to your fellow wolves on this matter, Reno Sinclair?" She added with a small almost sadistic chuckle, "We can't have an uprising if they don't agree with your choice in this matter…"_

"_Only one wolf opposed the thought." he answered. It was true, even if there really was only one other. "But she relented and agreed to follow me, wherever I may go and whomever I may work for. We are at your disposal."_

_A slow deliberate nod was given from Integra at this answer. "Very well. You are dismissed." After a heavy pause in which Reno lifted his head up to watch her walk around her desk toward her chair, she added, "Welcome to the Hellsing Organization, Pack Sinclair."_

_Reno stood up, gave a small nod of his head, and turned about to proceed walking out the door with his strange slouched gait, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He would have to get himself a cell phone with his first paycheck from this place; it would at least give Integra something to contact him with. Well, mostly it was for Tsuri and Naquza, in case something happened he needed to be present for. It was much more inconspicuous than Tsuri's pet dragonet -- Zuki -- flying after him, that was for sure._

_Shortly after swearing his loyalty and allegiance to Hellsing, he did just as he promised himself and bought a cell phone._

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_

Almost a week and a half had passed since Reno had been pulled from the interrogation by Rip Van and he was just now stirring awake and relatively alert. The rest of the time since he was pulled to recover, he could not remember much about when he had woken up, if he had woken up.

Every once in a while during that time, he had tossed fitfully in his sleep and half-consciousness, only to be soothed by a softly singing voice. It calmed him when he heard it and caused him to stop moving about, his tired mind registering it as his late mother helping him get to sleep at night.

He was vaguely aware of the three days of the full moon rising, feeling the shift and bristle of extra hair and a change in body structure through his sleep. The wolf had tried to help clean his wounds, even though his human mind could barely register it; it had run its tongue over the wounds of its fore-legs and its ribs. Naturally, it was a different body and didn't have the physical injuries Reno himself had sustained. However, because it shared his life with him as something of a soul-bond, it felt every blow that had been dealt him and so thought that it too had received the cuts and bruises. The last night of the full moon had passed and brought the human form back until the one night of the new moon that was yet to come. Hence the cycle and curse of a werwolf; added strength and speed were given plus the unlimited access to the wolf throughout the rest of the month. It was a blessing in exchange for those four days to pay, a good deal considering.

Now, his mind was fuzzing awake and everything still hurt. Even the speed-healing werwolves were born with couldn't seem to help him fully heal his current wounds as fast as he wanted them to. It hurt to move and to breathe and (he was almost certain) to think, but he still managed to at least prop himself up on his shaky elbows. Somewhere in the room, there was a small melody playing; humming or quiet singing. One of the two.

Blessedly, the light was low in the room he was in now; if it wasn't, the headache that came at even this small amount of light would have risen from its current intensity to something that could feel like it was killing him. It still made him groan slightly and close his eyes again.

This action procured a small sound of movement from across the room, the music stopping abruptly for a moment then starting up again as softly as it had carried on earlier. Slowly, cautiously, he allowed one eye to open again, as he had in the previous chamber. He was lying in a small bed, the linens soft to the touch and plain white. Next to the head of the bed on the left side was an equally small night-stand housing a single book of unknown origin, a bedside lamp that was emitting the pleasantly dim orange light that lit the corner of the room and hardly anything else, and a strange little pinkish alarm clock with indeterminable characters for the numbers (this was concluded only because his vision was so blurry at the moment). A pair of old-fashioned bells was set on the top and a terrifyingly cute smiley face adorned the center of the face under the crystal. It still worked; he could hear its monotonous headache-enlarging ticking from where he was. Not much else could be seen of the room passed the extent of the light save a rather tall lanky figure that was moving toward him slowly from the shadows on the other end of the room.

Out of reflex from his past recent experiences, he tried to flinch away from it or at least was readying to be brutally beaten in some way, shape, or form. He ended up not able to do anything; tensing up at all made his entire body shake and his stomach clenched around itself at the feeling, inadvertently making him want to pass out and uncontrollably vomit simultaneously. In order to relieve the stress of the past week or so, he also wanted to reach up and gently rub one of his eye scars. He tried and failed miserably, loosing his balance and falling over on to the side with the broken rib as soon as he raised a hand to try. This jerked a small cry out of him, his eyes shutting tight against the pain that knifed through every atom of every bone in his body.

Sure, he'd had worse, but this felt like it really was the worst in all aspects. Thinking back, he determined he had made it through worse only because there were a lot of painkillers in his system and because said painkillers tended to make him sleep for days. At this point, there were obviously none, else he'd still have been asleep or so high off his rocker that he would incoherently babble endlessly _until_ he had fallen asleep.

Reno's entire body was brought to calmness again by the touch of soft fingertips running gently along the scar he had previously been going for, the sound of singing closer now. The voice behind it was very good at it. At the feeling of the scar being rubbed, every muscle seemed to relax, relieving the tenseness that in turn caused agony to course his entire system. Slowly, his eyes opened again and looked as best they could toward the one who was graciously rubbing the scar for him. He didn't see much, just the lightly smirking lips of a feminine face down as the song died away. Any further up and his eyeballs began to hurt in their sockets and it caused searing pain to turn his head even a little at this point.

"Zere, zere." The voice was soothing, German. "Just rest for now. I von't let ze Major get his hands on you just yet und he knows it as vell as I."

The mentioning of the Major seemed to shoot memories of recent events back into the fore of the wolf's mind. It all came through his thoughts so fast that he barely had time to catch all of it. Damn. Right when he had finally forgotten most of it, too…

The hand at his scar was lifted and set to one shoulder, its twin moving carefully under his front to his other shoulder. A gentle push from the woman was given and soon, he found himself resting comfortably on his back again. His white-blue eyes met with her darker blue, just now picking up a small cloud of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. They looked … pleasant on her face and fit with the fact that she did look fairly young. But what was her name again? His mind raced again to find it. Should be one of the last things he vaguely remembered from the recent past.

Ah!

Rip Van. Of course; he'd made a joke about eating shorts should her last name be 'Winkle'. Lo and behold … and no shorts in sight at the time.

A fast glance at what he could see easily of her produced thoughts of how pretty she really was when not being a Nazi. Without the suit jacket, she actually had a figure … and breasts! Good Gods, he thought he'd faint at that. Not that he'd point that out just now. He'd rather be in peak physical condition when flirting or being a jackass. Being injured had its own perks with female attention, though, and he was going to use that to his advantage. For now, it was good to just take in her appearance in the soft light of the nearby lamp. She was thin, but well shaped if a little gangly, framed by a curtain of obsessively straight black hair that pooled around her as she went to sit on the edge of the mattress. There was always that one lock of hair that stuck straight out in front of her face and curled; against her pale skin and dark blue eyes behind thin-wire glasses, it was aesthetically pleasing. He remembered a straight black tie that had been at her neck; that was gone too, though the white dress shirt still remained. It hugged her form and tucked into a pair of straight pressed black slacks. Below her mid-thigh, he couldn't see any more, but what caught his attention was centered in the middle of her torso; a silver swastika charm. That unnerved him slightly, along with her strange mixed scent of vampire and werwolf. What was she, really?

He was pulled away from his silent observations as he felt the slightly uncomfortable sensation of splints and bandages covering his form when he settled into the mattress. It seemed Rip Van really did have some medical skills. He searched his thoughts to find something – _anything_ – to say, fuzzy though his mind was, and finally came up with something. Even through a puffed-up face though it was almost to its normal shape, he could talk fairly well, enough that he could be understood.

"I'm not in danger of infection here, am I?" His voice was low and very hoarse, muffled a little bit. It sounded a little foreign to him, like it wasn't coming from his mouth at all. The pain in his face confirmed that it was his, though.

She gave a small laugh and (whether it was in his current mental state or if he just felt that way) he found it … musical in itself. "Nein. I used to be a qualified medic, you know. Vas considered very gute at it, too." she told him. "Back in Vorld Var Two. Germans vere not as stingy vith zeir vomen fighting like Americans vere. If you vere able, you vere velcome to fight."

Reno's brow furrowed comically in that it hurt to crease it too much for too long. This was more at how she had ended up in Millennium than the era she had come out of (he himself was probably not in his youthful years any longer by most standards, though he looked it) and he voiced his opinion as such. "How…how'd you end up here, then? You could have left the war, become a successful doctor, and had a good husband, kids…"

She grew silent for a long while. "Ze battalion I vas vorking vith vas bombed." she finally said. "I vas in ze middle of it. I vas dying from being hit by shrapnel; I remember lying in un infirmary, vaiting und vanting death to come for me even zough at ze time I vas afraid, vhen ze Fuhrer came zrough my vard. He stopped in front of mein bed und chose me. Zat vas ze last zing I saw before passing out again. Turns out he had chosen me to join ze ranks for his 'secret' project. Und so, I am here." She paused a moment longer before turning to him. "I … don't like talking about my past much. Vhat about zese?"

Again, a couple of her bare fingertips ran along one of his scars, genuinely curious about them. They were, after all, not the normal surface scars but deep gouges that made the scar tissue sort of cave in a bit along their length and yet made the healed skin soft and smooth to the touch, if a bit darker in color than minor scars. She was trying to change the subject, but the tone she asked let him know that if he did not want to talk about his memories either, he could disregard it. He understood the want to not speak about the past and actually respected that kind of thing. Everyone had something they weren't proud of. Personally, most of Reno's life he wasn't really proud of, but he decided to humor her a little. After all, she had shared something with him even if she hadn't wanted to, small though it might be. Might as well return the favor…

"My family life wasn't the greatest while I was growing up." he began, pausing a second to recollect the memory. "Lived with a foster family, actually. My foster mother was a good woman and did everything she could to help me cope with my difficult life and tried to see to it that I grew up proper. My foster father, on the other hand… He was a drunk and an abusive son of a bitch, to boot. Would normally beat on my mother. Hated his guts and he hated mine, but we had a mutual kind of relationship where he didn't touch me and I ignored him to the best of my abilities."

He paused. The next bit, he had to admit, was still emotional to him and for good reason; someone didn't walk away from it without feeling some form of emotion, positive or negative. "One night, he came home, deep in the drink as usual. Started beating up Mom again for whatever reason, I don't know. I couldn't stand it anymore and came out of my room, a mere boy of seven. I don't know or remember what went through my mind at that time. It's still all muddled when I think about it. All I do remember is stabbing him in the back right next to the base of the spine with a fork and yelling at him to leave Mom alone. He turned around, pulled out an old dull Swiss Army knife he always carried in his pocket, and began cutting into my skin around my eyes, all the while saying, 'Have some of your own medicine, boy!'. This entire time, my mother's beating on him as best she can, telling him to stop, that I'm only a child…" He stopped.

The room was leaden under a heavy silence at that. Reno could see it flicker across Rip Van's face as she looked around with an almost nervous twitch; she could easily see the entire scene play across her imagination and was thus trying to find something to change the subject. Preferably now. It appeared she found it, her eyes lighting up, grateful for a chance to talk about something else.

She stood up and walked across the room into the shadows again, shuffling before coming back, holding something small and dark blue in one hand. Reno recognized it as his cell phone and it only confirmed his suspicions when it lit up in Rip's hand and beeped quietly. He had a missed call. She sat down on the edge of the bed again, picking up his nearest hand and curled the fingers around it. Sure, it hurt to even have someone else move him, but he was grateful. Unexpectedly, her touch was warm. Now he was _really_ curious about what she had been made into.

"I vent to retrieve your clothes und zings und found a pair of soldiers from ze earlier experiments trying to eat it ven it rang." she said with a small laugh. "I figured zat since you vere coherent enough right now, you could haf it back."

The pain was dulled in his arm the longer he held it up, flicking the little cover up. He damn near jumped straight up. "Forty-six missed calls?" he exclaimed so loudly, it actually hurt afterward. He winced a little at it and hit the 'OK' button to leaf through the missed calls list. "Integra … Integra … Integra … Integra … Tsuri … " His expression and tone of voice changed mildly at the change in names before looking bored again. "… Integra … Integra … Integra … "

Figuring it was mostly her with the occasional interruption of Tsuri trying, he flipped the phone closed again, feeling a little better that the Oh Holy Director was worried enough about him to call and check in. He laid it and the arm holding it on his chest before he realized his mistake of saying Integra's name in front of a Millennium groupie. "Fuck…"

Rip seemed to see what he was thinking through that one word. "Ze Major doesn't know who you vork for. But don't vorry. I von't tell him." A small smile crossed her face at that. "I … kind of figured it out ven I found ze patch on your pants. It still baffles me zat no vone noticed it."

He found that last line a bit confusing as well; the damn shield took up an entire pocket on his pants. They must all be blind … save Rip here. He relinquished the grip on the cell phone on his chest and moved that hand gingerly to rest on her hand nearest him. "Thank you, Miss Rip Van. I have a funny feeling that's going to do me some good in the long run."

He felt her start a little and saw her cheeks flush brightly, even in the dim light, as his hand came in contact with hers. "Y…you don't haf to be so polite. You could just call me 'Rip'…"

A small laugh left him at that. "Well, truthfully, I wasn't being polite. I was being flirtatious." He still had a little spark, even in his current condition. "But at least I'm honorable enough to admit it."

She was about to answer back (snidely by the way her left eyebrow darted upward) when a knock at the door drew her away. She stood up suddenly, went for the door, turned around again to tuck Reno back in and whispered, "Play asleep. Do _not_, under _any_ circumstance, open your eyes until I tell you ozervise."

He did just that and closed his eyes, listening to a bit of fabric shuffling and the light clack of her shoes on the floor. It was going to be hard for him to keep awake and 'asleep' at the same time; fatigue was starting to set in and that dreamy fuzz was beginning to filter back into his thoughts. The door clicked open and he saw the brighter change in the light of the room through his eyelids. He concentrated hard on that in the hopes it would keep him awake.

"Ja?"

"Ze Major vants ze volf to be dressed und ready for ein public appearance in half un hour in order to determine his loyalties. Ze Major himself vill be returning from his flight shortly." The new voice was deep and rough, but the scent that flew in through the wolf's nostrils told him that it was just another one of the FREAKs that frequented the old air base.

"I zought I made it clear he vas not to be moved until he vas fully recovered, vhich he is not." Rip sounded stern, protective, and Reno was drifting from consciousness again. He tensed one arm, letting the pain jet through his system and wake him back up again.

_Ow…_

There was the sound of nervous shuffling. "Ze Major radioed in und said you vould be like zis. He said it vill be brief, zen you can take him back und let him finish recovering."

A low growl ensued from Rip and Reno remembered that sound as the one she emitted coming from the tree that night not too long ago. It was animalistic, which brought him back once more to the confusing subject of her scent; could they have managed to mix the blood of a vampire and a werwolf successfully to create Rip Van? Or maybe she thought she was one, but really the other. That could be true and it would fit her name; a sleeping werwolf behind the guise of a vampire. He would have to ask her about it later, definitely…

"Fine. But no more damage vill be done to him."

"He vanted _you_ to handle ze dog, Lieutenant." The soldier sounded amused by the thought, a light laugh hinting at every syllable that passed his lips.

Rip, on the other hand, did not find this amusing. Her voice was still stern, protective, and had that hint of authority on it that Reno normally hated to hear. This time, however, he didn't seem to mind it. "He vill be out in a half un hour."

A pause. "Danke, Lieutenant."

Then the door shut, loudly. This was accompanied by a low grumbling in German which faded away as soon as she came into range again of Reno. "Alright. Ze coast is clear…" She didn't sound happy, and as Reno opened his eyes again to spot her barely outlined figure hunched over something at waist height just outside the range of the light into the black side of the room, he could feel it. Something was horrendously wrong…

She turned back around, his pants hung over one arm and a glass of water in the same hand and something in the palm of the other. "Tongue…"

He pushed to brace himself again on his elbows before he did as he was told and stuck his tongue out, watching as she picked up a wafer-like white-ish pill from her palm with the pointer and middle fingers and set it on his tongue. It was about the size of a quarter, but he could feel it dissolving almost instantly. It tasted incredibly bitter and sour at the same time, mixed with a chalky residue sensation. She handed him the glass of water next and he carefully took it and drank from it before setting it aside, grateful that he was getting rid of the disgusting taste of the pill. Almost immediately, his entire body began to tingle then go numb.

"The hell was that?"

"It is a very potent painkiller." A devious smile crossed her face, his pants handed to him. "It vill make you feel nozhing, plus it also makes you a little … strange in ze head. It vill keep you relatively safe from answering questions since one of its side-effects is actually making you babble on about ze most idiotic zings. Now put zese on before it kicks in entirely. It should already haf started to make you feel numb…"

Reno nodded. Indeed, it felt like he was flying and not even the sensation of the blankets across his lower half could be felt. He grabbed the pants from her and the rough denim was even no longer there. It was such a weird sensation that he dropped the clothing in surprise and went after them again. He snatched them up, knowing that he was holding them, even if he couldn't feel them on his hands.

Already, he could feel his hold on things slipping, mentally. However, the wolf was grateful he could move around without the soreness. That was an undeniable blessing. It didn't even hurt to stand, though he had issues staying straight up and in one place when he did. He ended up stumbling across the room to rest his chin lightly on her shoulder, muttering into her ear, "I can't get the button. Could you please help?"

She started at him being there and (he suspected) what he had asked her, but she turned around to get the button for him. Right before his mind completely fell to the effects of the drug in his system, he just about asked whether they wanted him to freshen up or not then remembered where he was and that it didn't matter; he still smelled a lot better than the FREAKs that inhabited the place even without having showered for almost two weeks. Then he fell into a blubbering mess due to the drug reaching its full effect and went babbling on about a bunch of white bubbles that apparently had taken residence near the ceiling.

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Rip was a little nervous about giving the drug to him in the first place; as soon as it would begin to wear off, it had another side effect that included violent outbursts and, with someone who had access to something like what Reno had, that could turn into a mess. But … by this point in time, she was unable to see him in any pain and knew that even the slightest of movement caused his stiff and sore joints and muscles to shriek. This was the only thing she had that could stop the pain and also keep his identity safe, since he obviously seemed loathe to reveal it to anyone outside those observant enough to find the obvious clues on his body.

She had gone to retrieve his clothes and effects when he had fallen into her care and had been moved to her room in order for her to help him recover. She snatched the clothing from the officers in charge of holding them and, when she was heading back, came across two of the vampires from the earlier experiments fighting over something small and blue that was singing something that sounded like it belonged in an old video game. Those earlier soldiers suffered from a sort of degenerative mentality (that Doc had finally fixed a several generations back); while they still had something akin to rational thought, they thought like they were at least three and with that age came the idea of exploration. Particularly the idea of putting things they didn't understand in their mouth. This included the cell phone they were both trying to eat.

Rip had grabbed that too; partially because she pitied the poor creatures and partially because if they did bite down on it, the battery acid was going to cause hell. As she walked down the hall, she checked the phone, which had stopped ringing. Across the top of the screen on the inside was written '_**Reno's phone. Touch and I'll piss on your shoe**_' in bold legible font. After knowing a little about the werwolf's attitude, she determined it sounded just like him.

She had returned to her room, put the collar back around his neck carefully (it seemed to have some big significance and she thought he would be grateful for it being back in its place), and waited patiently for the following week, sleeping in the chair she had taken temporary residence in until her bed was free again. Every time Reno began moving around in a sleeping fit, she had gotten nervous and started singing to calm her nerves. It was surprising to discover it calmed him as well; as soon as her voice came within range of his hearing, he settled down and stopped moving around, falling into a peaceful rest after she shifted him onto his back once more. She couldn't help touching the scars that ran along the outside of his eyes. They were smooth and pink around the outer edges, but practically caved into a deep red center. Not the typical scars.

The jacket she had used to cover him before had been washed and was returned to her, pristine as the day she had received it. Good. She had quickly replaced his boxers for him; she might have been a medic and so knew about male anatomy and normally didn't squirm when around it. So what was her nervousness around the wolf's? That was her question…

Once he was made decent once more, she had gone through his clothes, trying to find clues about him since she couldn't very well ask him at the time. That was when she found it sewn onto the front right corner of his jeans with petite professional black stitches. A patch in the shape of a shield, black and red, the name across the very top in black bold block font speaking quite plainly his alliance and loyalty; **Hellsing**. How in the hell no one else had found it was beyond baffling. Did she work with a bunch of blind idiots? Considering the question on everyone's mind was the loyalty of the captured spy, she had determined that yes. Yes, she did. She had convinced herself that no one but herself would know his alliance until that very end.

The full moon came around and she had gone out to fetch something to eat for herself … and come back to find a massive red dog where Reno had once been. It was definitely bigger than what the reports had said. The report for the mission to capture Reno before had stated it was a red wolf about half the size of a man. They were wrong, of course; it was only half the size of a man when lying down. It had to be at least as tall as the average man when standing up.

At the time, she was leery of it; she had only seen the Captain transform once and, for one, he looked nothing like the animal here. Captain looked more anthropomorphic, a stereotypical werwolf whereas Reno (she knew who it was not just by the coppery red fur, but the white-blue eyes and the strange markings where the scars normally were on his human form) was quite obviously a feral wolf. Big, but feral nonetheless. On top of that, Captain had gotten particularly vicious and had to be locked up during the one night of the full moon. Reno stayed as the wolf for three full nights and he was docile during the full moon. Never once did he snap or snarl, just whimpered and continually licked his fore-legs and wagged his tail happily when she came to pet him.

When she walked over to scratch behind the wolf's ears, Rip had seen a chance to get some sustenance to the human form. The wolf was licking at non-existent wounds on its body. That meant that, though the cuts and bruises probably didn't show up physically on it, it could still feel them. If she fed the wolf, Reno would, in turn, be fed as well. During those three days the animal was present, she made sure it ate and drank what it could. It went away as all werwolves do, but Reno looked much better when he came back and she suspected it was because he had finally gotten food and water into his system.

A few days after the full moon, he woke up and was actually somewhat coherent and responsive to his surroundings. She saw him look around while she stood and walked toward him. He was scared of her at first and flinched away, but she had used the same tactic with him as she had used throughout the past week or so, singing to calm him down and lightly petting the scar under his right eye. It worked; he relaxed and allowed her to move him onto his back. After that was done, she just … couldn't seem to pull herself away from him and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. He had been watching her all this time and it was like his eyes held her rooted to her spot, those haunting white-blue eyes.

The conversation that had followed shed light not only on her own past but a part of his as well. She had thought her memories were terrible; at least her family was as normal as a German family in early World-War era was. Her father had been an officer in the Nazi Third Reich and had wanted only the best for his family. Her mother had opened their doors to the orphans of war-torn Germany and, while uptight and always very authoritive in her household, had told her only daughter that she could be anything she wanted to be. Seeing the children who came in all beaten up and bruised from places that sustained bombings and the fighting in general, Rip had decided to become a doctor to see that the children later would at least have a chance.

She had only told Reno about the products of the many years of hard work and studying that had preceded her later job as a field medic. It was something that never left the system and that had been the main reason the Major had chosen her to take care of the red-headed werwolf; after all, she had treated the Major himself when he had been human still on the fields of war. He knew her skill first hand.

She did not like talking about her past, of course not. But when she asked Reno about his scars and had settled in for the point behind them, she got a horror story. She never could imagine a life as a child and watching helplessly as the mother was beaten up by a drunken father. Or staying absolutely still while the father cut into the skin, knowing that struggling or pulling away would only make the marks deeper or longer than intended, listening to a mother who retaliated as best she could but knew the same would happen if she tried to pull the knife away. So she had begun looking for a way off the subject, blessing the silence when he stopped.

A little light blinked from the table and she found a different subject to dwell on; the ringing phone. It was obviously his since it had his name on it. He seemed grateful that she had brought the phone to him, though the amount of missed calls over the past week and a half surprised him to the point where he hurt himself. She knew his alliance already, so it didn't shock her to hear him using the director's name out loud. It did worry him until she had assured him that no one was going to know his loyalties to Hellsing by her mouth.

He put his hand on hers then. It startled her so much that he had made physical contact with her so willingly when she had kicked his ass just as willingly before, she almost didn't feel the slight jolt that happened at the touch. He felt … electrified, and the sensation caused her to automatically turn her head away from him to try and hide her flushing face.

"Thank you, Miss Rip Van. I have a funny feeling that's going to do me some good in the long run." He had said it quietly and slightly muffled; it was to be expected with a banged-up face.

That made her jump a bit and not because she hadn't been expecting him to speak at all. Hell, he had been speaking clearly and coherently enough since he had woke up. It was mostly because not many people paid her a compliment. About the same amount of people actually thanked her for anything and meant it. She searched her mind only to answer back with, "Y…you don't haf to be so polite. You could just call me 'Rip'…"

She felt it was a stupid thing to say, really, but it wasn't like anything else she thought up was any better. What else did someone say to that? His light laugh brought her attention back to him.

"Well, truthfully, I wasn't being polite. I was being flirtatious." She was going to retort with something playfully rude when he added, "But at least I'm honorable enough to admit it."

An eyebrow shot up on her face at that and her mind was quickly forming something along the lines of 'You had honor to begin with?' but the thought passed almost immediately with a sharp loud knocking on her door. She was loathe to have to leave the contact Reno gave her, but it had to be done.

Rip had gotten halfway to the door when it occurred to her who might be on the other side of that door … and what her charge had to do with everything happening on the base for the time being. She turned back around, also noting her current appearance in her mind; she had removed her suit jacket for comfort (it _was_ a bit snug around the chest area and she could only stand to be in it for so long) and her tie was hung off the back of the chair she had been sitting on. Quickly she walked back over to Reno, tucked him in, and told him to pretend to be asleep. If he looked like he was out for a good long while, they would probably let him be until he was awake and coherent again.

He did as told and closed his eyes. She nodded her approval and fetched the suit jacket, putting it back on and buttoning it up. The tie was a minor detail; it could be left behind. She shot a glance back to the werwolf and turned to the door, opening it. On the other side of it was one of the lower-ranking officers. He struck a stance and saluted, as she held a higher rank than he did, then reported that the Major had wanted the wolf for a 'public' appearance later. She had forgotten that the Major wanted to address the conference between the Church of England and the Vatican later that day. Which meant that he would use the captive to find out where his loyalties lied without the wolf having to say a word.

Rip found herself getting extremely defensive of the wolf, denying the exploiting of him in any way, shape, or form. She wanted Reno to stay in bed until he recovered fully. Unfortunately, she was beat down in her attempts and that made her angry. With the ending of the talk with the other officer, she did not even wait for him to salute his parting, slamming the door in his face and cursing after him through the door in German. When she was certain he was gone from the door, she made her way back to the bed to let Reno know everything was fine.

At the sound of the news, she noticed that the arm nearest the wall relaxed as he opened his eyes; he had been accessing the soreness in tensed muscles to keep himself awake and yet 'asleep'. Seeing him alert again and well (as well as a guy who was recovering from being smacked around as brutally as he had), she headed for where she had placed the old first-aid bag she kept, digging around in the crumbling black leather of the thing before pulling out the bottle of pills she needed.

They had been experimental painkillers; extremely potent in one dose, but also dangerous in that the side effects were unpredictable. There were only two she knew of. The first was a very 'loopy' effect on the mind that made the patient see things that weren't there and talk about said non-existent things until they started to come off the high. That was when the second one kicked in. It was reputed that anyone who took the pill would experience a euphoric high for up to an hour to an hour and a half from when it fully took effect in the system. Then, they would turn violent as hell and try to hurt or kill those around them … or themselves, though the latter was only if there was no one else around.

The doctors in charge of producing it had tried to filter out that last effect, but only succeeded in making the intensity of the anger even worse, eventually being able to have the Jews they tested it on in the concentration camps kill themselves in less than a minute. Leave it to the sick minds who thought up injecting boiling peanut butter into the veins of the innocent people they captured… Despite their apparent amusement at watching the 'scourge of the earth' murder themselves one by one, they stopped making it and fiddling with it and gave it up as a lost cause.

Rip herself had never used the drug on anyone for fear of that second issue, but thankfully, she had some of the first batch, so the second effect was not as strong as the later 'generations' of the drug. But it was the only thing she had on hand that would both take away the pain Reno was experiencing right now and keep him from thinking straight enough to answer anything asked him correctly.

She took out one of the pills, filled a short glass halfway with water from a sink on the opposite wall as her bed, draped his pants over her arm on the way passed the little table they sat on, and headed for the wolf. Upon arriving, she had ordered his tongue to stick out, which he did easily enough to allow her to put the pill on it. With that done, she handed him the glass of water to wash down whatever vomit-worthy taste the thing gave him. He drank down most of the water and while he did so, she had to try to ignore the want to run her eyes across his boyish face and the long unbound red hair that made up his ponytail. It didn't work; she ended up looking at him anyway.

As soon as he had set the water aside and asked her what she had given him, she knew already that the drug was working. She was grateful for the distraction, explaining what it was to him then handing him his pants and demanding that he put them on. She could take care of the rest of his clothing if need be. But pants were like something private that she wouldn't touch unless she absolutely had to.

Which was something she ended up doing. His fingers had gone completely numb and he couldn't get a grip on the button above the zipper and had come to find her help by tripping over himself to put his head on her shoulder, a strange little smirk crossing his lips.

The fact that he had managed this was what scared her, his request for help buttoning his pants simply adding to the shock. It took a moment to register what he was saying before she turned around and focused on keeping her head down to avoid letting him see the blush that tinted her cheeks. He was decently built with fairly defined abs and a chiseled aerodynamic frame, pale skin, and that shock of red hair here and there that framed it, either behind him or where it fell over his shoulders to the front.

She got the button done, turning about to retrieve the shirt while she tried to ignore the pictures that flew across her mind. It was about this point in time Reno lost it, the drug taking full effect. Rip turned about with the shirt in hand to find him looking up at the ceiling with a furrowed brow, weaving dangerously back and forth, yet miraculously still keeping his feet. She looked a bit bewildered at this and looked up to see what he was seeing that had him so … intently staring at the ceiling. All she saw was the metal sheet that made her roof and ceiling, turning back to look at him.

"Vat are you looking at?"

He looked down at her, his eyes having gone completely blank like he was under some kind of spell, the pupils having contracted so far they almost completely swallowed the blue. Even his voice sounded trance-like when he replied, "The bubbles are watching me…"

She was unaware of her expression changing from bewildered to slightly disturbed. "Ze … bubbles?"

Reno had returned to watching the bubbles that weren't there. "Yes … the bubbles. There's one right there…" He pointed directly above his head. "…And there…" He pointed a little to his front. "…And there…" Here, he pointed to the next one, floating practically on top of Rip in his own eyes.

She wasn't going to stop him as he pointed out every single bubble he possibly could. He went on to tell her every detail about them. Apparently, they were all the same size (about baseball-sized) and made of something like Mother-of-Pearl; he said they were all silver-white and shimmered with a myriad of iridescent colors. Then he got all excited and said one of them turned bright orange.

"Zat's … lovely, Reno…" she sighed, helping him into the shirt. He fought for a second against it as he wanted to keep an eye on the bubbles so 'they didn't try anything', but he dealt with his situation and continued watching the bubbles as soon as the shirt (which was actually a tank top in dark grey) was put into its place. She sat him down in the chair she had been sitting in before, noting the shirt actually covered most of his patch and so solved the mystery of everyone being blind, and began to help him with his socks and boots. Once the footwear was placed appropriately and tied, she went about brushing his hair.

That was harder for her to do; she continually had to stop and walk away to gather less perverted thoughts that flew through her head concerning the way the contrast between his pale skin and white-blue eyes acted with the shocking red of his hair looked. The expression on his face didn't help her in the matter at all. He was looking straight up, which naturally caused his bottom lip to part just barely from the top, his eyes glazed over as he watched his bubbles float about above his head.

Finally, she managed to peel her mind from the wolf and the thoughts that she seemed to be procuring around the soft silken red hair that cascaded from his head… There she went again! Damn him!

Rip thought of something else to occupy her mind, snatching the small leather thong that normally held Reno's ponytail. She thought about being a little girl, laying on her back on the hill behind the house her parents owned and watching the clouds pass by, or picking dandelions to give to her mother just because, playing with the family dog, and the snowball fights she had with her father when he would come home. Before she knew it, she had the ponytail tied up and back. It made him look sleeker than usual and realized that was what made his look so lithe normally; his hair made all the difference between tied up or let loose.

Of course, he looked a lot better with it down…

She scoffed at her own thought and clipped a stout dog chain she had taken from the Doberman trainers a couple of days ago, figuring she would need it eventually, and she was right. Reno was talking about (and to) a multi-colored squirrel that had jumped on the table and was apparently talking back to him when Rip helped him to stand up.

"Ze squirrel vill still be here vhen you get back." she assured him when he told her rather stoutly he was having a perfectly logical conversation with the squirrel on the matters of life, the universe, and everything. He also made a point that it had said something about the number '42'; that was all she caught, the rest of the sentence pertaining to it was a completely jumbled mess. "Right now, ve haf un appointment ve need to keep."

He looked crest-fallen, leaned dangerously to one side before righting himself again, and followed her out of her living quarters as soon as she snatched her musket from its resting place across the table where it was always in reach. The bright florescent light in the hall outside the room made him squint and shy a bit until he had gotten used to it. When she began again, he zigzagged lazily down the hall behind her, occasionally tipping violently to one side. He smacked into a corner at one point after having tried to follow something that was quite obviously _not_ Rip and she turned around with a small start to face him when she heard him hit. He was lying on the white floor, bleeding out his nose (and not feeling it at all, she was sure), blinking dazedly toward the ceiling.

"…The bubbles are back…" he announced when she came into his field of vision.

She lifted an eyebrow. "Really? Vell, tell ze bubbles to go avay und zat you vill be seeing zem later."

Thankfully, she always carried a handkerchief in one of her jacket pockets and used it to wipe his nose clean for him before helping him up. He was going to be a handful until the drug wore off. As they began down the hall again, he called forlornly over his shoulder, "Bye-bye, bubbles…"

She shook her head. It was going to be a long couple of hours…

She was grateful when they reached the room in which everything was supposed to take place in. Besides the two of them, there was no one in the room. She had stopped near the wall to her left upon entering to wait for the rest of her comrades, watching Reno wander around at the extent of the chain attached to his collar, no doubt chasing his bubbles. She really had used the thing more as a guide for him, lest he would get lost trying to follow her through the halls otherwise. That and it kept him in range of her watchful eye…

She spaced off for a second, thinking on how things would go and hoping this would be over with soon so she could properly restrain the red-head for when he started to come off the high … when he bumped into her back. The sudden contact caused her to stumble forward and she made a high-pitched squeak noise when his arms wrapped around her, effectively binding her musket to her and her arms to her sides. He seemed fairly steady to stand against her when she had managed to hold her ground again, a strange intelligible shimmer flickering across his eyes when she looked over her shoulder at his face. She didn't like that feeling that she had no leverage; she was the one holding his tether, yet he held her in such a fashion that not even the strongest amount of force was able to pry his arms off her, even using the musket. That and he was shorter than she was; only by one or two inches, but still shorter.

The moment held for what felt like eternity, Reno inhaling and burying his face in her hair. "Hmmmm … Your hair smells nice…" he muttered to her, his voice suavely and very coherently (a little _too _coherently, actually) passing his smirking lips.

Rip had no idea how to answer to that. She only managed to procure a series of unintelligible stutters while wondering if the drug actually worked on him or if he was just playing like it did. She still hadn't managed to speak at all in response, when he let her go and leaned on her left shoulder using his arm, watching something that only he could see flutter around like a butterfly on speed; up, down, left, right, there was a corkscrew here and there... She dropped the subject when he did this, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he batted at the thing all the while trying to keep himself stabilized by leaning on her.

"Your pet is a little fucked in ze head, First Lieutenant."

Rip looked up to find the first arrival of her normal group show up; Zorin stood in the doorway with her sickle over her shoulder, watching with a raised brow as Reno half-stumbled half-swiped at his invisible plaything, whatever it was. He stopped suddenly, looking down at the floor, loosing his balance and falling after whatever he was looking at. It was a strangely graceful fall, but a fall nonetheless, and he began trapping whatever it was under his hand, lifting the hand up, looking disappointed and doing it all over again.

"Don't mind him. He's high on painkillers." Rip answered, waving a hand dismissively at Zorin as the other came to join her. "He just came out of his recovery coma today, so he'll be a little out of it."

"I see…" was the answer. "Und ze leash?"

"Keep him from hurting himself und ozers. I can't haf him going crazy und attacking people vhile he is in my care, can I? He might hurt someone und no doubt, zere vould be retaliation und he vould get himself hurt." There was a short pause before the dark-haired continued. "Also to keep him from getting lost in zis drugged state. He … has a bad habit of chasing zings zat aren't zere as of late."

Zorin just nodded, took a threateningly nonchalant stance with her sickle across her shoulders, and watched the red-haired wolf start watching the non-existent bubbles above his head again. She didn't say anything more on the actions or condition of the werwolf, occasionally moving her gaze to Rip, who had begun to think again.

She thought it odd that Reno had switched back to watching the bubbles float around right before Zorin had walked in. There had been something in the way he held on to her right before that – coupled with the glint in his eyes – that said there was something else going on just behind the veil of childish ignorance that the drug seemed to instill in him…

"He has a nice ass…"

Zorin's calmly amused comment had snapped her out of her thoughts in time to realize that sure enough, she was looking directly at the werwolf's bottom end wiggling around as he crouched down like a dog playing, smacking at his invisible thing still. _That_ was an interesting call back to reality, needless to say. But she still managed to get something out that sounded calm and collected, even if her inner self was squeeing (it was the only word that fit the sound she mentally heard) uncontrollably at the sight of it.

"Ja… ja it is…" Alright, so it came out sounding a little surprised.

Zorin had a cigarette in her mouth and was pleasantly smoking away, chuckling. "Ze vay you react, it makes vone zink you never zought to look in ze first place…"

Rip grimaced a little. "Actually, nein. I vas more interested in getting him healed enough to see him valking."

Another small laugh erupted from the light-haired tattooed woman, but she didn't reply. Rip glanced around to see her surroundings now and she noticed that the rest of her compatriots had joined them. It seemed only Zorin had really taken an interest in their strange visitor though, as the rest kept their distance from any other person in the room, save a pair sharing company here and there. The last one to come had shut and locked the double doors on one side of the room, leaving the pair on the opposite wall unlocked since they lead out to the nearby hangar.

They were all together in the room for less than ten minutes when the hangar doors burst open to reveal one of the lower officers. He looked frazzled and a little scared, which was odd for a vampire. "Quickly! Ze Major is back und he is in trouble!"

Another thing that people around here didn't normally hear... "Ze doors are locked over zere, ja?" Rip called over to someone located near the doors she had come through not too long ago.

She received a sharp nod in return before the one asked had taken off with the surge of the rest of the Werewolves. That meant Reno would have nowhere to run if he was acting the drug's effects; the doors there were locked with one of those huge deadbolts that would take six tons of explosives to blow apart without the key, and the doors to the hangar … well, the room beyond was full of vampire troops ready to kill him on sight if they saw him without his normal escort. She sent him a fast 'be good', dropped the lead, and took off with the other Werewolves through the doors into the hangar.

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**A/N** – One of our longest chapters at 27 full pages on Word. Wow! In other news, things are going to get interesting, of that we can guarantee. Also, the comment earlier about the Nazis using peanut butter as a torture device … true story. We know; it's frightening what people have come up with in this last century. We are also aware that 'be good' and 'Reno' don't belong in the same sentence, and see if _you_ can pick out the _Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ reference.

-- Black 13 --


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